The mortuary smelled like cold bleach and old regrets. She’d only started three nights ago,hired out of desperation, trained with rushed words and trembling gestures. At night, the place breathed on its own. Pipes groaned where they shouldn’t, freezer doors clicked open behind her without warning, and the overhead lights buzzed like flies. She’d begun to memorize their habits,the strange chill near the storage wall, the groan from Drawer Four, and how Drawer Nine always crept open again no matter how tightly she latched it. That one held the body no one talked about. A woman with no known cause of death, unmarked, face serene, found cold in a locked house with every mirror shattered and her hands folded over a book no one could read. Her only visitor was a pale man with ocean-colored eyes who came every night at six and sat beside her in silence.

Tonight, he didn’t come. She should’ve felt relieved. Instead, she kept glancing at the clock, waiting. By the time she wheeled the table out and opened the drawer, her hands were shaking. The woman’s skin was waxy and smooth, her eyelids shut. But when she turned back from grabbing formaldehyde, the eyes were open,glassy, wide. Still dead, but watching. Her breath froze in her throat. Still, she kept going. Rent didn’t care if you were scared. She inserted the drainage tube and flipped on the pump. That’s when she heard it again, banging from below. Not beside. Below. Slow, deep thuds like fists on concrete.

Her limbs turned heavy, her throat thickened, her voice garbled. It felt like something inside her brain wasn’t hers anymore. She shut everything off, shoved the body back into the freezer, pressing herself against the door as if to keep something in. The pressure in her chest faded instantly. Later, she found a door behind the chemical racks,stone stairs hidden in shadow. The air beneath was damp, heavy. Symbols were carved into the walls,eyes within eyes, teeth gnawing teeth. Nothing down there explained the banging. But when she came back upstairs, Drawer Nine was open again.

The next night, she tried once more. Midway through draining the body, her vision blurred. Her throat went numb. She dropped the tools, and then came the tap on the window. She turned.

It was him. Satoru.

Only he was smiling—too wide, eyes too still. He mouthed, Let me in. She didn’t move. Then his hands slammed against the glass BANG and he vanished.

She called him, the real him, sobbing nonsense. He sounded confused. When she hung up, something shifted in the burner room, something watching. She dropped to the floor, hiding behind the counter as uneven footsteps dragged across the tiles. The lights dimmed. Her ears filled with water.

Then,a knock. The main door.

And suddenly, everything cleared. The cold receded. She stood, barely steady, and went to the entrance. It was him. Truly him. Tired. Real. Human. She let him in without a word. Her hands shook as she led him past the prep tables. No talking. No sound but her uneven steps. She gestured at the table. But it was empty.

From his eyes, the room was bright. Too bright. Metal clean. Normal. Nothing out of place. But she stared at the table like it had betrayed her. He stepped past her, knelt, opened the freezer. His mother’s body was inside. Eyes closed again. Wrapped, undisturbed. Peaceful.

He looked at her,wild eyed, pale, broken.

“…What the hell is going on in this place?” he whispered. “…Why does it feel like it’s breathing?”